College textbook prices questioned

April 12, 2004|By H. Gregory Meyer, Tribune staff reporter.

Prompted by a study from a California advocacy group, Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Sunday called for an Illinois Board of Higher Education investigation into the "outrageous amounts of money" college students are forced to pay for textbooks.

"College is the time for our young people to explore those subjects that spark their interest, but that journey could come to a screeching halt due to what looks like price gouging," Blagojevich said in a statement released by his office.

A study released in January by the California Public Interest Research Group said that the average University of California student spends almost $900 per year on textbooks. The group complained that publishers often bundle textbooks with CD-ROMs, workbooks and other extras forming a costly package some students say they don't need.

The group also said publishers alter the format and pagination but little of the content of textbooks every few years to render older editions--and used copies--obsolete.

Wholesale prices for college textbooks have climbed more than 5 percent per year for the last five years, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The National Association of College Stores reports that their members' profit margins on new textbooks have remained steady, at about 22 percent, in the same time period.

Blagojevich is adding his voice to an issue that has already grabbed attention in Washington.

Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.) in November introduced a bill requiring to General Accounting Office to investigate the high price of college textbooks and whether publishers are marketing the same books at lower prices abroad.

Deputy Gov. Bradley Tusk said Blagojevich wants the Board of Higher Education to look at whether the publishing industry has been engaged in price-gouging or other monopolistic activity. If the answer is yes, legal action may be considered, he said.

Judith Platt, a spokeswoman for the Association of American Publishers, questioned the credibility of the California study. She said that with fiscal crisis gripping many public universities, "publishers are an easy target."

She directed complaints about the bundling of books, CD-ROMs, study guides and other add-ons into packages costing $100 or more to the professors who put the packages on their syllabuses.

"This is faculty-driven," Platt said. "If they believe that there are ancillary materials that will support their teaching, and, in the aggregate, cost less, they will say `Yes.'"

Out of every dollar spent on developing textbooks, publishers' after-tax income averages 4.8 cents, she said. "That is not exactly war profiteering," she said.

Tusk said that besides possible legal action, the board may look at whether state-led volume textbook buying, on the model of Blagojevich's effort to import lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada--would bring savings.